Maps

Related Links

Board of Trustees - Former Trustees

Samuel Appleton Browne Abbott

Trustee of the Boston Public Library, 1879-1895. President of the
Board of Trustees, 1888-1895. Lawyer and businessman. Born 1846
in Lowell, MA, and died 1931 in Italy. A graduate of Harvard University,
Samuel Abbott studied law with his father, Josiah Gardner Abbott,
and was admitted to the Boston bar in 1868. He was later admitted
to the bar of the United States Supreme Court in 1875. During his
legal career, he was also a board of directors member of several
companies in Lewiston, ME, and in Lawrence, MA. Samuel Abbott’s
dedicated service on the Board of Trustees for the Library included
several years as acting Librarian and, as the only trustee of the
original 1887 board empowered to oversee the project, coordinating
with the architects the successful completion of the 8-year construction
of the Copley Square library building. The 1895 unveiling of the
newly installed murals by Abbey and Sargent was enthusiastically
reported by the press, however, sensationalist criticism of the
attendant reception permitted by President Abbott within the library
led to his decision to resign from the Board in disgust. He became
the first Director of the American Academy in Rome, serving from
1897 to 1903, and lived chiefly in Italy until his death.

Sources:Professional and Industrial History of Suffolk County, Massachusetts.
Boston: Boston History Company, 1894.

Bacon, Edwin M., Editor. Men of Progress: One Thousand Biographical
Sketches and Portraits of Leaders in Business and Professional Life
in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Boston: New England Magazine,
1896 .

Wadlin, Horace G. The Public Library of the City of Boston: A History.
Boston: Trustees of the Boston Public Library, 1911.